2004 Indian general election

2004 Indian general election

← 1999 20 April, 26 April, 5 and 10 May 2004 2009 →
← outgoing members elected members →
543 of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha[a] 272 seats needed for a majority
Registered	671,487,930
Turnout	58.07% ( 1.92pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Sonia Gandhi Atal Bihari Vajpayee Harkishan Singh Surjeet Party INC BJP CPI(M) Alliance INC+ NDA LF Last election 28.30%, 114 seats 23.75%, 182 seats 5.40%, 33 seats Seats won 145 138 43 Seat change 31 44 10 Popular vote 103,408,949 86,371,561 22,070,614 Percentage 26.53% 22.16% 5.66% Swing 1.77pp 1.59pp 0.26pp Alliance seats 218 181 60
Results by constituency
Prime Minister before election Atal Bihari Vajpayee BJP Prime Minister after election Manmohan Singh INC

General elections were held in India in four phases between 20 April and 10 May 2004. Over 670 million people were eligible to vote, electing 543 members of the 14th Lok Sabha.^[1] Seven states also held assembly elections to elect state governments. They were the first elections fully carried out with electronic voting machines.

On 13 May the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the lead party of the National Democratic Alliance conceded defeat.^[2] The Indian National Congress, which had governed India for all but five years from independence until 1996, returned to power after a record eight years out of office. It was able to put together a comfortable majority of more than 335 members out of 543 with the help of its allies. The 335 members included both the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, the governing coalition formed after the election, external support from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Kerala Congress (KC) and the Left Front.

After facing criticism from her own party and from the country, Congress President Sonia Gandhi asked the 22nd Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, an economist, to head the new government. Singh had previously served in the Congress government of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s, when he was seen as one of the architects of India's first economic liberalisation plan, which staved off an impending monetary crisis. Despite the fact that Singh had never won a Lok Sabha seat, his considerable goodwill and Sonia Gandhi's nomination won him the support of the UPA allies and the Left Front. Manmohan Singh became the first Sikh and non-Hindu prime minister of India.

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